“I feel genuinely concerned that myself and many women I know feel kind of bullied into tolerating their partners porn use when they don’t like it, and they don’t even use porn themselves. Honestly, I don’t date because of it, because I feel like it’s “unfair” of me to have this as a requirement and I know that it is, for me. I will be unhappy with a man (or woman) who uses people they don’t know or love for their sexuality without knowing if the other person may be harmed by it, or care what circumstances and belief systems may be driving their participation in porn.”

“Welcome to the world of sexual repression. Nearly every woman I’ve had in a private sessions cannot make any sound. So how did most of us grow up masturbating? Holding your breathe and keeping silent so as not to be discovered. So beginning now, during masturbation you must practice making sounds. One way to start is to imagine what sounds you’d make if you were enjoying a gourmet meal. Like “yumm” or just “mmmm,” like humming. Our sounds of pleasure are important feedback for partners but more importantly for ourselves.”

“There are so many assumptions that go into Spreadsheets’ idea of “good” sex. They measure amount of sexual activity per month, number of thrusts, duration of a given sex session and decibel peak. For those who want to capture these measurements (with the option of sharing them on Facebook or Twitter), great. But I’m concerned that, in a culture that too often implies that the more sex you’re having, the happier you are, we assume that everyone’s erotic pleasure boils down to the exact same data points.”

“How can a porn producer make money if they just give their work away for free? How can they pay their performers in an ethical way when there is no money to pay them? How will they pay their crew and make a living from it? How will they afford to make more positive, feminist porn if they don’t get a return on their investment?

On top of that, feminist porn is often a boutique industry. We’re not churning out videos daily like some of the major porn companies. It can take time to craft a good film and we can’t afford to just throw them away by putting it up on a tube site for free. At Bright Desire, I’m only managing to make and edit one video a month because I’m a one-woman business. In theory, I could have every one of my videos up on a tube site in a few weeks. So then… why would anyone join Bright Desire? How would I get the site into profit (it’s still in the red)?”

“Why not just look at porn? “A lot of the draw comes from the knowledge, or at least illusion, that someone out there is creating this photo expressly for you,” says Lux Alptraum, CEO of the sex blog Fleshbot. “Sexted photos might be blurry or poorly lit, but there’s something appealing about knowing that they were taken just for you.” Jacoby denigrates this as “just a form of one-on-one pornography,” but Alptraum sees this as “actually a pretty awesome concept.” Why wouldn’t you want sexual content that is, as she puts it, “being created for, and transmitted directly to, you”? That’s why she has occasionally sexted with people she knows, as well as “people who I don’t know but am flirting with,” she says.

Of course, sexy selfies don’t just excite the recipient — they can also be validating for the sender. “Jacoby couched this in really negative terms,” says Alptraum, “but for me, if you’re approaching it with an awareness of what the extent of the relationship is, I don’t really see why there’s any problem with having fun sending and receiving naked photos.”

+ Lovelace, a biopic about Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat, a ground breaking 70s porn film, was released recently to mixed reviews (plus, it’s makers are being sued). Gawker calls it “simple.” Lindy West says it turns out to “actually be a story with an arc and a heart and a point. As biopics go, that’s rare.” But she also calls it gimmicky and says it’s kind of weird:

“Lovelace isn’t perfect—I’m not sure I’d rate it as a must see or a masterpiece. I’m not totally clear on its politics, which flirts with the paradigm that all sex workers are fallen women who need rescuing. And, as Steinem complained, it has more than a whiff of Lifetime Original sanitized schmaltz about it. But Seyfried and Sarsgaard keep things desperately human—you feel Linda’s prison—and the final product is a smart illumination of how hungry we are to swallow easy narratives and shameless prurience, because it’s easier than rooting out difficult realities.”

All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email bren [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.

Carolyn Yates was formerly the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com. Her writing has appeared in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, Xtra!, Jezebel, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles by way of Montreal and Toronto. Find her on twitter or instagram.

14 Comments

We love you, and just to prove it to you I created an account right now to tell you that this post was great, after lurking and commenting-without-registering-which-isn’t-allowed-anymore for years. I mean, I feel like I probably should have done it for one of those politically-oriented articles I have lots of thoughts about, instead of this one, but I know you always say it’s sad that everyone reads the NSFW Sundays but no one comments. So here I am.

I always read the NSFW Sundays but rarely comment because I’m busy reading all the links. :)

Porn just seems really soulless to me most of the time. It’s pretty rare that I run across any that seemed genuine in sexual expression, and on the rare occasion that I do it’s always girl-girl. I think I’ve seen one gay guy porn that seemed really seem that the guys were actually into each other (mentally; physically they were very much in each other!) so often the people in porn don’t seem to be actually paying any attention to each other. They just seem to be going through motions; from that aspect it seems exploitative.

But I also haven’t ever watch the crash pad series or other feminist porn, which I suspect might have a little more feeling in it.

Also, I guess I’ve never thought of fanfiction as porn. I tend to think of it as erotica, which is different in my head because – um. Because I like it? Yeah, I don’t think my reasoning is nuanced or anything.

Me to a co-worker awhile ago: “Hey so I already sent out the report on blah blah blah, and there’s a typhoon right now so expect increase in the absenteeism rate, AND did you know that orgasms are good for your brain? It’s true! I read it on Autostraddle!” *evil grin*

I’m glad I read the sex positive, negative, porn link. While it’s not my deal-breaker, I remember watching a youtuber state “Girls don’t understand that guys need to watch porn,” and it just left me with an odd feeling.

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